Don’t Jail the Frail Groping Bishop: He Is Screwed up Too

Sunday Times
September 13, 2015

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/newsreview/features/article1605858.ece?CMP=OTH-gnws-standard-2015_09_12

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Cliff James says Peter Ball, the former Bishop of Lewes and of Gloucester, had a ‘terrible power’ over those he abused

Cliff James decided to speak out after his friend Neil Todd committed suicide. In 2012 Sussex police had reopened a historic investigation into Peter Ball, the former Bishop of Lewes and of Gloucester and the most senior Church of England figure to face claims of child abuse. Todd who, like James, had been abused by Ball as a teenager in the early 1990s, killed himself shortly after Ball was arrested.

“He never had closure,” says James, speaking publicly for the first time. “He never got over it. And he might have if only the church had investigated things properly at the time and not tried to cover everything up.”

Last week 83-year-old Ball changed his plea at the last minute and admitted to offences against 18 teenagers and young men between 1977 and 1992. Under a deal struck with prosecutors to avoid a trial, he will not face charges for ...